WowAceUpdater

These are BETA addons you are updating and you should expect to see cutting edge features which may not be fully functional or bug-free. If this doesn't sound appealing for you, stop reading this page and update your addons through release versions from mod sites instead. Some addons are more beta than others.

This tool provides an easy way for you to keep your Ace addons up to date. When it first launches, it will download a list of available addons from http://files.wowace.com. If it can determine your local World of Warcraft installation folder, it will also compare that list with the addons you currently have installed and pre-check them.

Check the boxes of any addons you want to update/download and choose "Update Checked Addons" from the File menu (or press F12). The status of the download will be presented in the lower pane.

If set to true, it will skip any installed addon that has a .svn folder in the root. Good for developers who don't want their working copies lost, but also useful if you want an addon to be ignored because you have private changes or custom files. (Default: True)

SkipVersionCheck

If set to true, all checked addons will be downloaded and installed and no version comparison will be performed. If set to false, an addon will only be downloaded and installed if there is a newer version on the server. (Default: False)

UseRecycleBin

When true, it will move things it deletes to the Windows Recycle Bin instead of deleting them. (Default: True)

WowInstallDirectory

The location of the World of Warcraft installation folder. You can also set this to another folder (it must exist) if you want to update (Default: auto-populated from the registry if available, blank otherwise)

Tips and Tricks

Dealing with Library Errors using !!!StandaloneLibs

Purge and Reinstall

WITH Externals vs. WITHOUT Externals

WITH Externals

AddonA uses libraryX and LibraryY, and AddonB also uses the same two libraries. If you installed both AddonA and AddonB "With Externals", you would have a folder structure as follows:

Interface\AddOns

..AddonA

....Libs

......LibraryX

......LibraryY

..AddonB

....Libs

......LibraryX

......LibraryY

When you load AddonA and AddonB, each addon instructs WoW to load the libraries contained within it's folder structure, meaning LibraryX and LibraryY both get loaded twice (once for each addon). X and Y are smart enough to know that they are the same library so only one copy remains in memory. This is also called "embedding libraries".

WITHOUT Externals

Using the example above, but installed "Without Externals", the folder structure would instead be as follows:

Interface\AddOns

..AddonA

..AddonB

..LibraryX

..LibraryY

AddonA and AddonB will have instructions in their TOC file to force WoW to load LibraryX and LibraryY first before attempting to load either addon (specifically, A and B will list LibraryX and LibraryY as dependencies). This means you only load each library once, shortening the loading time when first logging in. This is also called "disembedding libraries".

To run without externals, enable "Automatic Dependency Download" and disable "Default mode WITH externals".

Which is better?

No matter which way you install your addons, memory usage and performance is (usually) not affected, only the initial loading time. Library upgrades should always be backwards compatible within the same major version.

Of course, some people don't like seeing 40 different libraries in their addon folders as "individual addons". The main issue most people have with this is that there is no standard library naming scheme so there are heaps of libraries in your addon folder without any easy way to differentiate the libraries from the actual addons.

Library authors are moving towards naming their Libraries starting with Lib- though, so this shouldn't be too much of an issue in the future. But the future is a long way off.

If hard drive space is an issue (like if you have *every* Ace addon installed and a dinky little hard drive), you may want to update without externals. That way you don't have 974 copies of the exact same files all over your Addons folder.

Cleanup WoW Saved Variables

What does it do?

When you delete a mod from the Addons folder, it may still have files in the WTF folder. This feature removes WTF files that do not belong to any current mod in your Interface/Addons folder. It affects any WTF file, whether or not it was installed by WowAceUpdater.

Before deleting the old files, it makes a zipped backup named "account-backup.zip" in your WTF folder. To prevent this backup from being overwritten the next time you use this feature, either move or rename it.

Gamepedia

Tools

Content is available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 unless otherwise noted.Game content and materials are trademarks and copyrights of their respective publisher and its licensors. All rights reserved.
This site is a part of Curse, Inc. and is not affiliated with the game publisher.